An Interview with Scott Westerfeld

Best known for the thrilling dystopian adventures of the Uglies series and steampunk alternative reality of Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld is also deservedly famous for his hallmarks of gripping action, absorbing characters and brilliantly imaginative new societies. In his new book, Afterworlds, he reveals a wholly different sort of fantastic realm: the world of publishing and YA. Melissa Hyder interviewed him for Books for Keeps.

Afterworlds follows eighteen-year-old Darcy as she starts a new life in New York after clinching a lucrative publishing deal. Her life becomes one of knuckling down to the hard work of rewriting and trying to fit into the community and expectations of YA publishing – essentially rewriting her book as she redefines herself. As Scott puts it when he flew to the UK recently on a brief visit, it has a ‘we are all made of drafts kind of feel… Darcy is growing up. And growing up is partly revision. What I realised about her was that she wrote this first draft while she was in high school – a callow high school student who knows nothing. But now she’s this eighteen-year-old adult living on her own, so she’s in the process of revising herself and growing up.’

Afterworlds features a cunning split narrative, with alternate chapters following Darcy, and relating the novel she is writing – a YA thriller-romance. The whole delivers not only a realistic and affectionate portrayal of the writing process, but also the interrelation of art and life. ‘I wanted to create in the reader the same feeling I get as a writer when I’m in the middle of writing a book,’ Scott revealed. ‘When I’m writing, I’m aware of the book all the time. There’s no escape from it. There is no real life. There’s just that book . . . You’re in the same headspace she [Darcy] is, where your real life is interrupted all the time by this other story.’

Darcy’s novel is enthralling for the reader too. Its heroine, Lizzie, survives a terrorist attack by slipping across to the afterworld, following which she is able to see ghosts in the real world too. There’s romance in the form of a lord of the underworld, and darker territory as Lizzie determines to mete out some real-world justice on behalf of the ghosts she discovers. This feels more like Scott’s regular territory, but writing it was not without its own challenges. Scott points out that, ‘Lizzie’s story is Darcy’s novel, so I was writing it in character. So there were lots of things that she did as a writer that I wouldn’t do, and vice versa. For one thing, if Afterworlds – the book within the book – had been a Scott Westerfeld novel, there probably would have been more action scenes! I was both reigning myself in and letting myself do stuff I wouldn’t do – like the kissing scenes were probably more involved than the kind of stuff I would normally deploy.’

Darcy’s real-world life in New York is more of a departure for Scott in his writing, but is not without intrigue and links to Scott’s proclivity for alternate worlds. ‘The weird thing with writing about Darcy is that it’s realism… and it’s not really the usual thing I write much of or read much of. But with the publishing world – it’s almost fantastical in a way . . . I’ve been in the world of publishing for more than twenty years. It was a chance to use all these crazy stories that I’ve collected. In a funny way, the most unrealistic parts of the novel are in Darcy’s story – which aren’t realistic, but they happened!’

There’s a huge ring of authenticity to Darcy’s meeting with her YA author heroes, her experiences with book signings, school visits, the near-random nature of success, and what she’s willing to do for her book. Scott himself once went all the way to Friedrichshafen, Germany to get a zeppelin ride to write it more authentically in Leviathan, but apparently the scene in this book where Darcy’s friend demands she lock her in the boot of a car in the name of research was also one of those moments that took its inspiration from real life. ‘That was Holly Black, actually,’ Scott reveals. ‘She got in a trunk and was driven around by Cassandra Clare because there’s a scene in her Curseworkers series where this character’s in a trunk and she wanted to get it right.’

Scott also explains that the YA drinks night Darcy attends is a reflection of what David Levithan set up about ten years ago in New York for YA writers. In fact, many of the fictional authors in his book bear a thinly veiled resemblance to current popular authors, and Scott admits he enjoyed making good-natured fun of his friends. (Their response can be seen in the fabulously fun Afterworlds attack ad on YouTube.)

Scott has also written alongside these authors, quietly in cafés, each absorbed in their own writing and companionship. When at home, he also writes with his wife, fellow author Justine Larbalestier, and they often read their chapters out loud to each other, to see how authentic it sounds and give each other feedback. ‘I’m [also] a firm believer in habit being your ally as a writer,’ he says. ‘I write in the same chair, I write at the same time of day, I write with the same amount of caffeine in my blood. It’s sort of a trick I picked up from Raymond Chandler’s letters. He talks about writing in the same room at the same four hours every day. He can’t do anything else for those four hours . . . He can stare at the wall or write . . . At first it’s kind of horrible, but once your body becomes acclimatised to it, it’s almost Pavlovian.’

In fact, with so much reflection in Afterworlds about how a person writes, as well as what they writes, Scott’s solidifying the advice into a non-fiction guide: How To Write YA. While it will be invaluable for adult writers, he says he also had teens in mind with it. ‘One of the reasons I wanted to write Afterworlds is that there are so many kids writing right now . . . When they read a book they might tweet in character or give their impressions; later they do fan fiction or their own novel. And there’s lots of blogging about and reviewing of books.’ He makes the salient point that ‘it would be hilarious to go back in time fifty years and tell people that in the future teenagers would voluntarily write book reports and publish them for everyone to read . . . Some of the most active websites in the world are people talking about books and arguing about books . . . No one’s cooler than a really cool teenager. They’re absolutely genuine, there’s no craft to it, no accumulation of weird biases and assumptions. And there’s always going to be something unexpected and interesting coming out of their mouths.’

It seems that this freshness and opportunity to change is what draws him to writing YA himself. ‘It’s a really interesting time of life. Your first kiss, your first beer, your first meaningful lie, your first betrayal, your first political conviction – all that stuff is happening around then . . . And at the same time teenagers as a class are new . . . and there’s this moral panic about them constantly because they’re all wearing hoodies or stabbing each other with knives or whatever fake, made-up shit the media is engaged in about teenagers, which goes all the way back to rock and roll. That “evil devil music that destroyed society”. I would argue that rock and roll was this thing that was primarily consumed by teenagers, spread across the United States, and then became a global symbol for America. And right now that is kind of happening a little bit with YA. It’s this thing that used to be this sneaky little part of the publishing industry, and now it’s where the big books are; what’s saving the publishing companies, and independent book stores,  is that big pile of Hunger Games, John Green or Twilight at the front of the store. And it’s a piece of American culture that’s spreading across the globe that everyone is super-aware of – it has many of the characteristics of rock and roll.’

Perhaps that’s why the rebel in all of us loves these stories, and with their strong edge of independence, humour, energy and originality, Scott’s books certainly showcase that feeling.

Afterworlds, Simon and Schuster, 9781471122569, £7.99 pbk

Leviathan, Simon and Schuster, 9781847386748, £6.99 pbk

Uglies, Simon and Schuster, 978-0857079138, £6.99 pbk